Sometimes you get an error message “Unable to obtain hardware information” or “Unable to determine Guest Operating System” when using VMware Converter 4.01.

This happens at least with VMware Converter 4.01 and converting x64 VM’s like “Windows 7″ and “Windows Server 2008 R2″ from ESXi 4 U1.
Others found out it also happens with some Linux VMs, I have not tried those yet.

samsaid

This method worked to get me past the first error in VCenter converter standalone. However I wasn’t then able to select the VM hard drives individually (by volume as opposed to by disk) to deploy to the new VM.

Removing and re-adding the source VM to the inventory did not fix it for me either.